not rule hikea compromise on a tax hike for top earners, somewhere between today's 35% rate and the clinton-era's 39.6%. >> there are a lot of things ssat are possible to put the revenue the president seeks on the table. >> reporter: even if the two sides are making more progress behind the scenes, no one mit its them to admit it until of last minute. ederoffice of management and budget has asked all federal agencies to come up with a detailed list of possible cuts if there's no deal, maurice. >> dubois: nancy, thank you. t how is all this affecting the economy? the one sign we did see yesterday showed improvement. roe unemployment rate dipped to 7.7%, the lowest in four years. 146,000 jobs were created in spite of super storm sandy and the fiscal cliff threat. joining us now to talk more about that cliff is mark zandi, reief economist at moody's analytics. mark, is that threat credible? i guess we saw hiring last month, the stock market is hanging in there. what's the feeling on the part i thorporate america? bu well, you know, i think businesses feel like we're going deget a deal. they expect t